In Death's Presence
by FeatheredMask
Summary: A mother, still stricken with grief years after, discovers her child survived the birth, and now travels to Death City with the intent to keep him forever safe. Kid is annoyed.
1. Death

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater. Only two characters in this chapter are from Soul Eater. All others were created by Jay Jay (I have yet to make her a fanfic writer) and I.

Warning: Mention of rape may be a trigger for some people. The story doesn't revolve around it, nor is there any description.

* * *

><p>A child, barely into adolescence, huffed with pain as another contraction took her breath from her. Her hands clenched, coated in sweat, but no strong hand held them in a comforting gesture. She had no support here other than the nurses who had to deal with childbirth almost all day.<p>

The door opened, long enough for a voice to state, "They'll be here in ten minutes."

The girl managed a nod, concentrating too much on the commands of the nurses rushing about in the room. Another contraction gripped her, and she was brought back by wrinkled hands clamping over her own.

Five hours later, the child lay collapsed in the hospital bed, nurses fussing over her young age. An infant was cleaned tenderly by wrinkled hands.

"What now?" Her voice was raspy from crying. She ran a finger through the black baby hair.

A gruff voice replied, "I refuse to let my child raise the child of a rapist."

The mother, now a grandmother, glanced at him. "He's our daughter's child, too."

"Still. A child, raising a child? She needs to finish school. We can't add the burden of childcare onto that. She doesn't even have someone to take care of a child with. We can't financially support an infant."

"Then what do we do with him? She's just break to be reminded of that horrifying event every day."

"Adoption," the grandfather said, voice wavering, betraying his distraught heart. "We give him to the orphanage and tell her he died."

Hours later, when the girl awoke crying for her child, she was informed that he died moments after his first breath. She cried herself back to sleep. Her parents cried with her, assuring themselves it was for the best.

* * *

><p>It started with a cough. No one took any heed of it, as many kids at the orphanage developed sore throats and colds as winter dragged on. The coughs grew to phlegmy hacks and took his breath away, but the caretakers gave him a cough drop and sent him back to play. When he focused less on his obsession, the caretakers were proud, and lavished him with praise. He laughed as he wobbled across the room, drawing giggles from the female caretakers. The tossing and turning in bed went undisturbed. He foregoed playing tag to sit and read. It was when he fainted during lunch did anyone notice the high fever.<p>

Jerry sighed again as the child broke into another fit of coughs in his sleep. He hacked and tore at his lungs until Jerry began to massage his throat. The child's breathing slowed back to ragged intakes of air.

"Nick," Jerry whispered. "You were such a quiet child. Your parents would have been lucky to have you."

Voices drifted from the entrance hall. This was an unusual occurance, as the whole orphanage had gone quiet when the doctor proclaimed that nothing could be done for Nick.

"Hello." No emotion, barely heard over Nick's breathing. Simply common courtesy.

"Good morning! My my, why are you so sad?"

Jerry sat straight up in his chair as he always did when he heard that voice.

"It's..it's nothing for you to worry about, Lord Death."

"Oh? Go ahead, tell me. Get it off your chest."

A sigh, not of relief, but of pain and heartbreak.

"It's one of the children. He...he'll be coming to you soon. I don't need to explain more."

Silence. Jerry tucked in Nick's sheet where it had wrinkled in his fit and straightened the pillow as he would have liked it. He slid Nick's arms back in place at his sides. His heart broke when he heard Lord Death.

"Take me to him."

Jerry resigned himself to Nick's death. It had come earlier than the doctor expected, if Lord Death was coming to take him away.

He had his head down when the door opened. There was a long, pregnant pause as Jerry waited for Nick's breathing to cease.

"How do I go about adopting a child?"

Those were the last words thgat Jerry would have expected at that moment. His head shot up and he stared at Lord Death. The other caretaker's glasses had fallen off in shock.

"W-what?" Jerry finally got out.

Lord Death tilted his head. "I want to adopt this child. Can we do this quickly? I have things to do."

The female caretaker picked up her glasses, having recovered first. "Of-of course, Lord Death. I need you to sign a few forms, but we can forego some of the other documents."

She ran out to retrieve the papers. Jerry gaped like a fish. Lord Death, adopt an orphan? The idea of it was inconceivable in his mind.

The caretaker came back, and Jerry watched, numb, as Lord Death signed several papers, and pondered over another before he said, "Aha!" and wrote something else.

Lord Death scooped Nick into his arms, the child looking no better than a corpse. Jerry watched them leave, too numb with shock to do anything else.

* * *

><p>Aw, so sad. In my opinion, the irony of so much of it was unbearable. The 'child' mother was 12 when she gave birth, and was 16 when her child was adopted. She could have been kissing her future husband while her kid was dying. Plus, we came across so many ironic titles. Our second option for a title was <span>Negative Fate<span>.


	2. Who?

Rebecca burst in to the room, announcing between gasps of air, "I'm here! I'm here!"

She kneeled at the side of her mother's bed, taking her hand in her own. A little girl ran in the room behind her, passing by her grandmother to bury her head in her grandfather's neck. A man followed at a much slower pace, looking altogether sheepish and awkward.

Kayla, head still pressed against her grandfather's shoulder, started sobbing and blubbering about what she did that week. Everything on her mind poured out to one of her only friends, unable to bear losing him.

The grandmother moved her lips, as though to tell them she wanted to speak. After a glare from his wife, Victor stopped fidgeting and kneeled with her.

"Before I die..."

Rebecca stopped her. "You're not going to die anytime soon. You need to rest right now, and you'll be right as rain tomorrow!"

She shook her head ever so slightly, putting forth a visible effort to speak. "I need to tell you this."

Tears flowed down Rebecca's face. Victor put his hands on hers.

"We lied to you."

Rebecca laughed dryly. "You never told a lie. Daddy might have, but that was all fun. You always tried to do what was best for me."

The grandmother's eyes seemed to break. "Nick," she whispered.

Rebecca went rigid. Her eyes narrowed and she hissed, "What about Nick?"

The grandmother closed her eyes. "He survived."

Rebecca sucked in a breath, and her mother's face became pained as her fragile hands were gripped tight.

"Where is he?" she demanded. Victor looked confused, but settled with a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"We gave him to an orphanage in Death City."

"In the middle of the desert!" Rebecca screeched. She stood, letting hermother's hand slip from her grasp.

"Kayla, Victor. We're leaving."

The grandmother mouthed an apology. The grandfather continued snoring.

"Mommy, where are we going?" asked Kayla, after they passed by the road that led to their house.

"Death City. I can call in a few favors to get us a house there. I lost a child many years ago, and now I'm getting him back."

"I have a big brother?"

Rebecca smiled. "He's twice your age, but I don't want to miss any more of his life."

* * *

><p>The Meister trio and their weapons sat in Maka and Soul's apartment, making idle chatter as they waited for the rain to stop. Maka was smoothing out a postcard, and, as the law of random conversation demanded it, the topic to talk about turned to her.<p>

"Who sends you those postcards, Maka?" Liz asked.

Maka started at the question, but then smiled. "My mother. She's always traveling, and sends me a postcard every time she goes to a new place."

"It must be nice to have a mother, even if she's away all the time," Liz said. "Patty and I are orphans and grew up without anyone to check up on us before we met Kid."

Patty added to her sister's say. "Kid's like us in that he doesn't have a mommy, either!"

Liz turned to Kid. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen your mother before, Kid. Why don't we ever see her?"

Soul snorted. "Better question is, who is your mom? Who attracted the attention of Lord Death?"

Kid looked at everyone now leaning forward in interest. He sighed, more out of annoyance than reluctance.

"I lost my mother a long time ago. How I am a Grim Reaper is a secret, but if you want to look at it like that, I never had a mother."

"So... Lord Death reproduced asexually?" Soul asked, half joking.

"Technically, yes."

As expected, everyone stared at Kid in full shock, which soon turned to horror.

"I'm going to have nightmares now," Soul muttered.

They were quiet for a moment before Blackstar broke the silence with an awkward laugh. "H-hey, I think the rain's letting up. See ya!"

The rest made their excuses until Liz was dragging Kid out the door.

* * *

><p>"May I see the files of every child in the orphanage?"<p>

The caretaker smiled at the request. "Of course. You've come to adopt, I assume."

"Actually, my parents took my baby to this orphanage some time ago because I was too young to take care of him."

"Ah." She blinked at the odd story. "That changes things. What's the last name of the child?"

"Smith."

The caretaker put on a sheepish smile. "There's a lot of Smiths at this orphanage. Can you give me a specific name?"

"Nickolas Smith."

She sighed in defeat and grumbled under her bretah, "Of course, another common name."

Nevertheless, she opened a drawer and pulled it out to place it on the desk. Files of varying sizes and antiqueticy filled it.

She deadpanned, "This is the 'Smith' file."

The mother thumbed through the tabs and pulled out a smaller file tabbed 'N'.

"Have fun." The caretaker went to another room across the hall.

As Rebecca went through the folders, the entrance door opened and an elderly man came in, carrying a heavy-looking box. Rebecca abandoned her search and went to help him, receiving a thanks in return.

Once the box was set to the side, the man took his place on the other side of the desk. "Are you looking to adopt or for work?" He smiled at her, like a kindly old man. "I'm Jerry."

"Rebecca. I'm searching for a lost child of mine. His name is Nick Smith."

"There are many sad cases of children running from home, kidnapped, or a case of mistaken placement." Jerry started pulling out folders matching the name. "Do you know when he was placed here?"

"Twenty-three years ago."

Jerry slowed. The crow's feet around his eyes became more pronounced with his smile. "I remember a child from back then, with that name."

Rebecca looked up at him with hope.

"He had OCD, and required sleeping in a special room because of that. He made friends with everyone despite that. I grew attached to the little tyke. He was quiet unless spoken to; very polite." Jerry's face fell. "When he fell ill, he never complained, and so no one realized until it was too late."

Jerry handed a folder to Rebecca, forcing a smile. "There you go. Nick Smith. He looked so much like you."

Rebecca's eyes were drawn to the picture. She found her features in his face: the same black hair, same hairline, same bright blue eyes, same dimples as he smiled at the camera. She frowned. Among those were traits he had not inhereted from her. The thick eyebrows, crooked nose, large teeth, lower cheekbones.

Something Jerry had said came back to her. "What happened to him?"

"Someone rich adopted him to make his last days happy."

"What... what do you mean?" Her mouth went dry.

"I am sorry for you loss, ma'am. He never lived past the age of four."

"Where..." She licked her lips. "Where was he buried?"

"There wasn't a funeral, but the entire orphanage came to place flowers on his grave. It's located at Death Hill, among the graves of the Deathscythes."

Rebecca blinked, remembering something. "The DWMA is in Death City, isn't it?"

"Death Weapon Meister Academy? Of course. Anyone can register there to see if they have any potential to be a weapon or Meister. It also offers courses in martial arts and military training. Sometimes Meisters and weapons 'unlock' their abilities through the extra classes, although anyone can train as a Meister without Soul Perception."

"Of course," Rebecca echoed, now internally conflicted. There was an equal push and pull factor: Her first child spent his four years here, but her second child might be in danger with the majority of the population trained to fight.

Rebecca left the orphanage, a picture of her first child in her hand. She found her way to Death Hill, buying lilies from a flowershop on her way, and followed the directions to the Deathscythe graves.

Each Deathscythe grave was different, carved in stone to be a replica of their weapon form. This section was set on a small hill, the top of which had a small skull-shaped gravestone placed on it.

The ground around the grave was disheveled, as though someone had dug it up recently and tried to put it back as it was. The dirt under the grass was freshly upturned. Rebecca almost cried, seeing her son's grave desecrated like this. She pat the dirt down, and did her best to set the plants properly.

Rebecca knelt there for some time, grieving over the child she had grieved for 23 years prior. Nick spent the four years of his life without a mother. It broke her heart.

Idly, she started to go through Nick's folder, hoping to catch a glimpse of her child.

She smiled as she saw the name; below it the orphanage had let her child 'sign' his name. It looked as though it had been printed in blocky capitals; the fact that it was in crayon gave away that Nick had written it himself. The blood type was her own: AB. At least he had her blood running through his veins. The weight and height were average for a four-year old, so she basked in the thought of giving birth to a healthy child and moved on.

When she made it to the adoption files, she frowned. The only signature was someone who went by the name of 'L. D.', not even a caretaker signing to approve the adoption. Her heart fell. It would be impossible to thank for the kindness when she only had initials to start her search with. As she went on, she noticed several of the documents were blank. One paper in particular caught her eye.

The name change form was filled out.

Sha glanced at the grave marker, and sighed in relief. On it was Nick's original name. She found herself questioning why the name form was needed when she should have been thanking whoever made the gravestone for keeping his birth name.

The form didn't solve the mystery. The bottom of it was burned away, leaving only the tops of what seemed to be very loopy handwriting. from that, she could tell it wasn't Nickolas Smith.

When Rebecca arrived home, she hugged her husband and let the tears from that day fall. He wrapped his arms around her, not moving to sit, even after he had spent the day moving furniture delivered from their previous home.

"How old was he?" Victor asked softly, holding her shaking form.

"Four."

* * *

><p>Blackstar and Soul are just about interchangable in who spoke when not talking about 'stars'. It gets confusing.<p>

This chapter's way of naming the family is different from the rest of my stories. In my other stories, characters go unnamed until someone calls them by their name. At the beginning of this chapter, I decided to make it so that if you paid attention to what the characters were doing, the names would match up with the actions.

Question for you: is the idea of this story obvious yet? I've had problems with my teachers misunderstanding the concepts of my stories when I don't flat-out explain them.

EDIT: I managed to misspell the name "Nickolas." How does that happen? Also, question is void. The idea is handed to you on a silver platter and introduced.


	3. Buttercup

Over the next two months, the Johnson family moved into the small cramped apartment with all of their furniture and decoration. The sight of everything after the last load was delivered was enough to think of how Nick would have thought of it. In his memory, Rebecca organised the rooms as neat as she could, and kept it like that, if only to get a sense of what it would be like to have an OCD kid living with them. She worked with more vigor than she had before with housekeeping.

Rebecca went to Nick's grave daily, bringing at least one flower: picked, grown at home, or bought. Some days she sat in silence, others she dictated her day or a day in her memories.

Kayla attended the local elementary school, and Victor found a job as a bartender. Rebecca thought it insulting, both to her and her husband, to work at a cabaret, and instead worked part-time at Deathbucks, a cafe.

After hearing that the DWMA was little more than a military school with the odd addition of a dance class, Rebecca wanted to stay far away from it. More importantly, she wanted Kayla away from any danger, and being near the fights that often broke out (they were encouraged) would contradict that. She would keep her daughter closer than ever after the heart-breaking fate of her first child. She refused to lose another.

The first few days, Kayla would ask when they were going to visit Grandpa again. Rebecca would smile and say, "When we usually visit him," which was during the summer. Rebecca hadn't checked with the doctor on how long her parents had, but knew Kayla would forget once she had something to occupy her mind. Victor was the same; he would settle into this life as if he'd never had any other.

Their first Christmas was sad for Rebecca. She spent the day wondering what Nick would have liked as a present, and planted poinsettias around his grave. The area around the pine tree stayed spotless, broken ornaments thrown out, and the presents arranged neatly; in accordance with her OCD Nick. Kayla had asked again and again what bothered her that day, and Rebecca shook her head to all of it.

Rebecca glanced at the clock, and smiled, as it was an hour after the elementary school had let out. It was a ten minute walk away. Kayla already had a distraction. She hummed and busied herself with preparing a flower for her daily trip to Death Hill.

* * *

><p>Kayla had certainly forgotten about her old home, instead a light tinge of pink on her cheeks.<p>

She stared at the group of older students playing basketball. The thick sweater kept her quite snug, so the winter's chill didn't bother her. Her blue eyes glazed over as they followed one player in particular.

The one she watched threw the ball at the hoop. It circled around the metal ring before dropping in, and the game continued, half of them cheering on the girl who next stole the ball. She passed it to a boy with white half-stripes in his hair. He hesitated after he caught it, and dropped the ball when he doubled over in a fit of coughing.

A girl, Maka - Kayla had learned a few names by now - picked up the abandoned ball before it could roll away. "Kid? Are you okay?"

"Kid?" The tall girl sitting next to Kayla closed her romance novel. She'd given her a few strange glances, but for the most part, didn't mind Kayla's presence. "What's wrong? Did you think of something asymmetrical? You usually get fidgety or a nosebleed when that happens."

Patty, the short girl who passed to Kid, blinked owlishly. "No, don't you remember, sis?"

"What are you-" She cut off and demanded of the rest, "What day is it?"

"Wednesday?" Soul tried.

"No, I mean - what's the date?"

"The eighteenth of January," Kid snapped, drawing the attention back to him. He rubbed his throat. "I'll be fine. I'm going home."

"What's wrong with him?" Maka asked. "Why is the date so important? I hope he's okay."

Liz replied, "He only gets sick on this day every year."

"Why?"

Liz shrugged. "He doesn't tell us. He'll be fine tomorrow; he always is."

Kayla missed most of the exchange, her eyes and thoughts trained on the albino. When the game ended several minutes later, Kayla followed Soul part of the way home, somehow not registering - or caring - that Maka was with him. She skipped the rest of the way home, elated of the thought that it must be a short distance from Soul's.

* * *

><p>When Kid arrived at his symmetrical mansion of a house, he leaned against the door, catching his breath, only to be attacked by another fit of coughing.<p>

"That time of the year, is it?"

Kid didn't answer, recovering from the attack. He glared at the offending yellow flower in his father's hand.

"Go on, you know you want to."

Lord Death gave the tiny flower to Kid, shooing him out the door. He easily overpowered Kid's feeble resistance. "This is the season I check up on every store and organisation in the city, and I decided to procrastinate, so I'm already late."

Kid shivered, now outside again, feeling so much colder than before. "He could at least have let me get my coat," he muttered.

He sighed, and raised his hand to summon Beelzebub. Nothing. He hunched his shoulders forward in an attempt to keep himself warm, and walked with his head down.

At the graveyard, he lay the buttercup flower by a small skull-shaped gravestone, being careful not to make contact with the grave itself. He made no comment on the freshly-upturned dirt on the grave, evidence of someone digging it up. The entire city must have heard the rumours about the grave. Most of the more curious ones knew it contained no body. The annual buttercup appearing on it would fire up the rumour mill again.

Kid mulled over his thoughts as he walked around the Deathscythe graves. He only came here once a year, and the faint nostalgia they brought him lightened his soul, even if he had no memories to go with them. The grave would be connected with him, if Liz and Patty loosened their tongues or connected it themselves. However, if he showed at school tomorrow with no sign of illness, then those rumours would have no grounding. His weapons were known for overreacting, anyway.

Kid pulled out a handkerchief with another bought of coughing. His shaky legs brought him away from the Deathscythe graves, and soon he stopped coughing. He swallowed painfully. A spot of scarlet bloomed on the handkerchief.

* * *

><p>Rebecca picked up the buttercup. She looked around for who could have placed it, and saw a teen leaving Death Hill. She smiled.<p>

* * *

><p>Soul and Blackstar stared at the doorway in some sort of competition. Beside them, Tsubaki giggled when Blackstar started to open his mouth, thinking he saw something. Maka smiled next to her, preparing her notebooks to take notes on today's lesson.<p>

"Aha!" Soul and Blackstar yelled simultaneously as Liz and Patty walked in the class. The two sobered when they realized Kid wasn't with them. Maka frowned. She hoped he was okay.

"Where's Kid? Is he too scared of me to come?" Despite his boasting, Blackstar had a hint of concern in his voice.

"Don't worry. he kept us up half the night with his coughing, but he's fine now. Lord Death told us to let him sleep in."

"That's good," Maka said, he fears alleviated.

Before they could say more, someone at one of the higher-raised desks laughed loudly, saying "I'm gonna suck your blood!" in an accent one would associate with a vampire.

"Right, like a vampire could hide from Lord Death in his own city. Besides, why would his grave be with the Deathscythes?"

"It's the only explanation! The dirt is always dug up in the morning."

"That's everyone looking to see if there's actually a body."

"What are they talking about?" Liz asked.

"You haven't heard?" Blackstar asked. Liz shook her head. Patty was happy drawing giraffes in a notebook.

Soul explained. "There's a grave in the Deathscythe cemetery that belongs to some orphan. The body was never delivered, but they put a gravestone in anyway. Nearly every Meister and their weapon have dug it up by now."

Liz shuddered. "Ugh, I hate cemeteries."

"I was dared to last year!" Soul defended, wary of the impeding Maka Chop.

Blackstar, free from any harmful retaliations from Tsubaki, continued in Soul's place. "Every year a buttercup flower appears on the grave, and last night it appeared again!"

Any more conversation silenced as the sound of whining wheels reached them. They all watched the morning entertainment of Dr. Stein crashing with his chair in the classroom.

Looking up from the floor, he asked, "Kid's skipping today?"

"Kid got sick," Patty said in a sing-song voice.

"Isn't Kid a Grim Reaper?" Ox asked.

"Duh," Liz said. "Where've you been? The entire school knew several months ago when we enrolled."

"Just making sure," Ox defended. He pushed his glasses back in place. "It's to my knowledge that Grim Reapers don't 'get sick'."

"Well, Kid was sick. He almost fainted into his dinner yesterday, and was burning up with a fever." Liz looked at Ox. "How would you even know anything about Grim Reapers?"

"Lord Death told me. I did an essay on comparing Grim Reapers to normal humans, and asked for his help."

Stein spoke, having picked himself and his chair from the floor. "That makes it an unexcused absence, then. He's missing out on the preparation for emu dissection."

Two hours later, Kid walked in the class, ignoring a comment from Stein on punctuality. Maka put a hand on his forehead when he sat down, and retracted it with a sheepish smile. Kid nodded to show his appreciation for her concern.

Had she checked his temperature 24 hours beforehand, she would have demanded he go home immediately.

* * *

><p>Buttercup flower - Represents humility, neatness, and childishness. It's a light peanut butter color. It's a small flower.<p>

Cabaret: Host/hostess club. Provides alcohol and flirtatious conversation toward a certain gender. Spirit often goes to a hostess club. Ouran High School Host Club, an anime, is about a [high school] host club.

It's sad about Rebecca. She's doing so much to remember this little kid who died an orphan, trying to fit him into her everyday life when he's not there. She's even living in Death City because he spent his short life there. Kinda painful to think that she's been told twice now that he's dead.

You might think it's unusual that Rebecca is attached to Nick, being that he's the result of rape. During pregnancy, there's a chemical produced that makes the mother and child emotionally attached to each other. 'Unconditional love', you might call it. It's the same chemical produced during a, uh, certain _intimate_ activity. She feels attached to the rapist as well, but that was a few seconds and Nick was nine months.

Lord Death chose the buttercup flower for its symbolism. Humility: orphan. Neatness: OCD (there's a reason this trait was picked against 'quiet' 'maternal love' or 'friendly'). Childishness: little four-year-old.


	4. Empty Grave

I apologize for the long wait, I wanted to work on the rough draft for NaNoWriMo, and then waited until I got a laptop for Christmas. So, without further ado, I give you a belated Christmas present.

* * *

><p>"Mom, can I transfer to the DWMA?"<p>

Rebecca jerked around, dropping a wet plate. Fortunetly, it was plastic, and left only small splashes of water and soap on the floor. She stared at Kayla for a time before she found her voice.

"Join the DWMA? Why?" She breathed in slowly, anything to ward off the impeding panic attack that might worry Kayla.

"Well, if I join, I'll learn how to defend myself from anything. And if I'm a weapon or Meister, I'll have a partner to help defend me."

"Bu-but what ab-about the fights that always go on?"

Kayla sweeped away her mother's worries with an absent tilt of her head. "Those are only with students in the really elite classes. I'll be learning in the normal classes."

Rebecca picked up the dropped plate, appearing to examine the new white mark as she thought. For a moment it was symmetrical, an older scrape on the other side. Then she scrubbed it and the new blemish vanished. She tucked it between two other plates on the drying board, the plastic pink standing as unique as the ceramic and glass beside it.

"Mom?" Kayla prompted.

"I want to speak with the principal before I enroll you."

Kayla cheered. "Yes! Everyone's been saying Death himself runs the school. It's gotta be awesome!"

"Death runs a school," Rebecca echoed, feeling dizzy. "How nice."

* * *

><p>"Excuse me, sir?"<p>

Sid turned to see a woman and a little girl - relatives, judging by the similar facial structures - wandering through the entrance of the DWMA. The woman's eyes widened when she noticed the ice blue pallor to his skin, empty eye sockets, and stretched skin keeping his lips open. She flinched away when he started walking toward them.

"I want to enroll!" the girl said, displaying emotion opposite of the older woman.

"I'll take you to Lord Death, then," Sid said. The woman stiffened, and the girl gasped. "He really does own the school? Awesome!"

Sid chuckled. "You're new to Death City, aren't you?"

"Yup," the girl skipped over to him and her mother quickly joined her, placing herself between them. The girl didn't seem to mind, continuing to talk like there wasn't a blockade. "I'm Kayla. Mom's name is Rebecca. We moved here two months ago. I was surprised that it rained here a lot the first few weeks, being in the desert and all."

"I'm Sid. Deserts get a rainy season every year. We don't get snow here, even if it seems like it's cold enough right now."

"So what's it like at the DWMA?" Kayla asked, bouncing with restrained energy.

"As with any school, you have to work hard to get good grades. Since you don't have a meister or weapon, you'll practice handling different kinds of soulless weapons. A teacher will help you with that one-on-one. Then you'll have dance classes to practice resonating your soul in time with another. That's a required class for those without a partner and optional for everyone else. Another student will help you get the hang of it, then everyone teaches each other. It's a good way to find your partner. You'll start in the NOT class; that's the beginner class. That class will teach you everything about what you need to know to be a student of the DWMA, and for the more 'normal' education you'll be tutored by a student until you're at the level of the classes we provide."

"Wow, that's a lot more classes than I had at any of my schools," Kayla said. "But amazing."

Sid stopped at a door. The Johnsons didn't miss the skull logo embedded in the center. Kayla asked if she could knock, and Sid nodded. The knock sounded like a boom on a giant doorway, instead of the rap one would expect from a door made of glass. "We're here," Sid announced as it swung open.

Rebecca stiffened and went a ghostly white. Gallows lined the hallway, making up the walls and ceiling, sharpened blades about to plummet to someone's beheading. Her arms wrapped around Kayla in a sort of shield, the girl not caring. Kayla, smiling mischeiviously, said in a casual tone, "The guittine was named after a nice guy named Guilluitine. He was beheaded soon after it was invented." At the reminder of the possible end, Rebecca hugged her tighter.

"Y'know," Sid continued in the same tone, "after someone is beheaded, the eyes keep blinking and the teeth chatter for several more minutes." Rebecca gave a small squeak. "It's because there's still oxygen in the brain to keep those parts working."

"Hello there!" A funny skull mask popped in front of them as they reached the end of the hall. Rebecca shook with barely concealed horror as the Grim Reaper hopped back to give them space.

"Lord Death," Sid greeted with a nod of his head. "This girl wants to enroll here, and as you can see, Rebecca is hesitant about the decision."

"Hello, Rebecca. I'm Lord Death, headmaster of the DWMA." he held out his comically-large hand. She stiffly shook it, looking ready to faint.

"So, what do you think of the school so far? Maybe I can clear some things that you may be confused on."

Rebecca relaxed somewhat at his kind tone, but still looked pale. Her words slid from her lips, a whisper she barely processed beforehand.

"Keep her safe."

"Of course." Lord Death's words sounded low and seirous, despite that he kept his ever-ridiculous voice.

"May I ask if there's anything we need to watch for?"

Rebecca shook her head. "I lost one child a long time ago. I don't want to lose this one."

Lord Death nodded and was silent. Finally: "Would you like to sign her up for medical lessons? The school's nurse can teach her."

Rebecca smiled faintly. "Thank you. I'll allow her to join, but I want to be able to pull her out at any time."

Lord Death bounced and clapped his hands. "Now that that's settled, how 'bout some tea?" After noticing Rebecca still swaying, he amended himself. "On second thought, I have some work that I forgot to do. Important; can't forget about it!"

He laughed awkwardly and shooed the visitors from the death Room.

* * *

><p>Rebecca told Victor what happened that day, resulting in Victor praising Kayla for being brave enough to even consider joining a military shcool. Which thus resulted in Rebecca screeching at Victor about how vital their child was to Victor's well-being. Kayla was happy and tried to smother her laughter during the 'argument'.<p>

That day when Rebecca went to deliver a flower to the grave, she noticed a few children wandering the graves. She ignored them, as they were only walking, and continued to the Deathscythe graves.

* * *

><p>When Kayla arrived home from school the next day, she found her mother a nervous wreck. Her eye twitched and a smile was plastered over her face. In her hand was a plate, long ago clean. Her current scrubbing threatened to scrape off the glaze. A glance at the draining board revealed it to be empty.<p>

"Mom?" Rebecca jerked up and Kayla was amazed she didn't get whiplash turning around. Then again, she had seen greater achieved in demonstrations to her class that day. Thankfully, she didnt drop the plate this time, which was ceramic.

Rebecca flung her arms around her daughter, very nearly taking her head off with the plate. Her form shook with sobs. Kayla winced at her grip

"I'm tired, Mom." Rebecca made no sign she heard. "Really, I've been exercising all day. I only had two hours of normal class."

Reluctantly, Rebecca unwound herself from Kayla, her smile'stretching at a face used to frowns showing her relief for her well-being.

"I even got a uniform, even if they have so much variety they wouldn't have noticed if I had worn my normal clothes," Kayla said, gesturing to her flare jeans and pink sweater. She pointed to a pink bow in her hair, a skull set in the middle. "I even got a little bow."

"You're getting along with everyone?"

"All of my classmates are really nice. They told me a few interesting rumours, too. The one that's even in the elite classes and among the teachers is that there's an empty grave in the cemetary."

"Oh?" Rebecca asked, already back to cleaning the dishes now that some of her fears had bveen alleviated. Dishes began to pile on the draining board. "Why is that so interesting?"

"It's a hot topic every year. Someone puts a buttercup flower on it every winter, and no one knows why or who."

"Buttercup flower?" Rebecca wondered, the flower she found on Nick's grave coming to mind. Perhaps that teen knew LD and would let her thank him.

"I don't know flower symbolism." Kayla shrugged. "Everyone's more tied up about that it's there in the first place. Considering most of the older students have actually dug it up to find nothing buried."

Rebecca forced a smile as Kayla went to take a nap, but inside she squirmed with worry. Maybe she would stop at the cafe for a coffee and conversation on her way to Death Hill.

* * *

><p>Rebecca heard much whispering on her walk. Kayla's short mention of the rumour had opened her ears to acknowledge the words that passed behind hands and ached with the excitement of the forbidden. She started to doubt herself. Was her Nick really lying peacefully under that little skull grave? Was anything down there at all?<p>

"Rebecca!"

Rebecca jerked from her musings to stare at the Deathbucks patio, a blond young lady waving to her. She managed a smile in return and sat with her friend.

"Molly," she greeted. "I haven't seen you in a few days. Thank you again, I really must."

Molly blushed, and took a sip of coffee to hide it. "Really, it was nothing. That was a few months ago, anyhow. Besides, finding an offer for a house capable of being bought in a few days is nothing compared to how you got me the job that made my career take off." Her eyes wide, she gestured around her. "I still can't believe I'm barely out of college and already have a high-paying job in Death City! You're lucky to have even found a small job here. They're all gobbled up by the DWMA students."

Rebecca;laughed at her enthusiasm and went on to ask, "I heard a rumour about a grave. Do you know anything about it?"

"The one with the buttercup? That one circles Death City every January every year." Molly shrugged and went on. "There's a lot of different rumours with that one, including stuff about vampires and zombies. Some can be proven wrong based on inconsistencies with the tale and common sense."

"How did it originate?"

"The rumour started 19 years ago: at first, only the funeral home spoke about it, until word somehow spread." Molly's voice lulled into one used for spooky storytelling. "A child from the local orphanage died, but there wasn't a funeral, for no body had been delievered. A curtom gravestone was put in among the Deathscyth graves, but no one knows what convinced the undertaker to put it in, free of charge, even!"

Rebecca felt her heart trembling and her body going cold with Molly's words.

Molly, too focused on her story, took no heed of her audience, her eyes seeing only the little grave.

"The day after, the whole orphanage put flowers on the grave, a flower for every child. Among those was a buttercup flower, even though those aren't native to Nevada or sold at the flowershops here. From then on, every year on that day in Janbuary, a buttercup flower appears the grave."

Rebecca willed herself to speaak. "What's the name of the child?"

Molly leaned forward, and as if giving away a huge secret, whispered, "Nickolas Smith."

That day, huddled in a ball against Nick's grave, Rebecca cried. She couldn't tell whether they were from happiness or sadness.

She sobbed to herself, "What happened?"

The spoken question seemed to make Molly's words echo louder in her mind. The stone she hugged became just that, a stone. Her fingers slipped and grasped for the eye-like handholds, slick with sweat and tears. Rebecca thought bitterly that there should have been blood sleeping below her.

"But there's no one," she whispered. Louder, she shouted, "No one!"

Her voice cracked and her throat was raw. Rebecca bleakly thought about screaming until her voice no longer worked, until none of her worked, so that blood could join the sweat and tears on the stone.

"Where's my child?" The question came as a croak. "My baby!" she yelled at the ground. The upturned dirt was no longer unruly kids kicking her heart, but the truth shoving its cold dagger in her chest. She closed her eyes and wished for the cold to freeze them that way.

She opened her eyes to find her skin numb, but with a pang of sadness, found her feelings unhindered. Her forehead bloomed with warmth, and something held her upright.

Victor placed another kiss on her forehead and pulled her in a hug. Rebecca shivered as feeling returned to her nerves, but Victor looked away. At the stone. Her whirlwind of emotion returned, and Rebecca buried her head in his jacket.

"So that's where-"

She cut him off with a harsh, "No. No one's there." Her shoulders shook and she crumbled back to her state from before. "No one! No-"

Victor pulled her closer, stopping her screams. Instead, she cried.

Between her sobbing, she whispered, "He was never buried here."

Neither of them spoke; they didn't have to. They knew they thought of Nick, even if speaking his name would bring Rebecca back to hysterics. A smile tugged at Victor's lips despite.

"He survived again?"

* * *

><p>Ooooo, dramatic irony in the conversation between Rebecca and Lord Death. At least I think so. And then some cliffy or foreshadowing at the end.<p>

Sid's explanation: I constructed the classes before reading Soul Eater NOT. Maka mentioned she wasn't good at dancing in the anime, so I made the dancing classes optional, but recommended from Soul's praise of dancing. Also, I made it so they have to find the 'right' partner because of what happened when Blackstar tried to use Soul in weapon form. That 'demonstration' was decided on before I read Soul Eater NOT as well. It was given by a different student. Think of it as a mock fight between two (plus weapons) EAT students.

I think my spellcheck is acting up. Sorry for any errors.


	5. Breathe in, breathe out, Connect

This chapter makes the story over 10,000 words! Woot!

* * *

><p>Rebecca shot upright, gripping Victor's jacket collar menacingly.<p>

"Explain," she demanded despite her croaking.

Victor chuckled, at which Rebecca raised an eyebrow. It turned into laughter.

"It-it's ironic," he said between chuckles. "It's happening again."

"What's happening again?"

Victor hesitated, long enough to compose a straight face, but now he wore a frown.

"I don't want to get your hopes up," Victor confessed. Scratching the back of his head and glancing at the stone, buttercup flower wilting from the cold, he made his decision. "But."

At the shine in his ife's eyes, he almost retreated, then sighed. "When you were twelve, your parents told you Nick died, but later you found out he survived. Again you were told he died, and now, well-" He glanced at the stone. "-he might have survived this time, too."

Rebecca's hand relaxed from their threatening position, and found Victor's hands to bring to her face. Hopes and heartbreak waged war within her.

"You want to know as much as you can about Nick, don't you? this is a chance to find out what he was like growing up. See if he was happy, even if our search turns out that the rich guy buried him in an ultra-secret tomb full of samurai."

Rebecca giggled at the image of little Nick covered in samurai armor much too big for him. Victor had a sense of humor that always could make her smile.

Victor whispered in her ear, "Once you know he's at rest, you can relax."

Rebecca laughed, shaking her head. Tears, dried and fresh, sprinkled her cheeks.

"We still have Kayla to look after. She's a handful."

* * *

><p>Birds, left behind to brave the cold, hopped around the patio, diving for spots of crumbs beneath the tables. A small child ran after the birds nearby her mother, laughing as they flew off.<p>

Rebecca walked onto the patio and down the steps, the door chiming behind her. She forced her pace to be steady, clenching her wallet in her pocket. Slowly she drew it out, her fingers prying to get at the picture inside. Her hand stilled; she dared not risk damage to her only photo of Nick.

Her feet brought her to the bakery across the street. The walk seemed like hours to her, anxious to start her search, eyes darting in all directions for a glimpse of a man that resembled herself. The bakery greeted her with similar chimes as Deathbucks did every morning. She walked right up to the cashier, glancing at the other patrons.

"Yes? How can I help you?"

Rebecca brought out her wallet and resisted the urge to take out the picture, instead flipping the wallet so it could be seen. "I lost my child a long time ago, and I heard he might be in Death City. Have you seen someone that looks like this? He would be older now."

The cashier declined, and Rebecca left. She tried the same procedure at many other stores and restaurants before receiving a positive answer. A few times she wished she had the forethought to ask each customer that had come to Deathbucks that day during her shift, and wondered if she should wait until tomorrow to do that. She refused that idea; this was a way to find him today, and she didn't ant to wait any more.

"Yeah, he comes 'round every other week to buy his girls clothes."

Rebecca stopped short, her mouth partway open to say, "Thank you, sorry for wasting your time." She had expected the negative answer that had become buzzing white noise. In a fit of desperation for even a hint of her Nick, Rebecca had gone to a large department store.

"Really?" she asked, unable to keep the shock and hope out of her voice.

"He looks a lot like the picture, but he really looks more like you."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, he only comes here to make sure the clothes the girls get are the same, and he pays for them."

"You don't actually know him?"

"No. But he has a card that gives him massive discounts. That's all I know."

A few more buildings later, she started getting more hints of Nick. Customers and employees told her he passed by on his skateboard almost every day. They made no mention of the twins until Rebecca asked, and then they were only with him when he and four others walked with them. They said they saw the skateboard only when he rode it. They repeatedly described him as wearing black and white clothes.

"My son might know him," one person said. At Rebecca's prompt, she called over a teenager.

"Yeah?"

"That guy that always passes by on a skateboard, do you know him?"

"He always wears black and white, right? He's a meister at the DWMA." The boy frowned. "There's something else about him, but I can't remember what it is. Sorry."

Rebecca left the store wondering what Nick was doing at the DWMA. Did he really become a teacher for the DWMA, teaching teens all day? Mind set to find out more, she started toward the DWMA.

"Excuse me!" Rebecca called to some teens playing basketball. A girl sitting on the bench waved to the others to continue playing, and hurried across the court to reach Rebecca, who waited with her open wallet.

"Have you seen my child? I'm looking for him, and he's older than in this photo."

The girl instantly went on the defensive at the sight of the photo. "What do you want with Kid?"

Rebecca took a step backward at her tone. "What? This is Nick."

"His name is Kid."

"'Kid' isn't a name."

"It's Kid's name!"

"This child's name is Nick."

"What do you want with Kid?"

"He's Nick!"

The girl glared at Rebecca, hatred emanating from her. The basketball game had ended, and now the kids talked amongst themselves. One kid, an albino, separated, coming up to the two. He placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Maka," he said. She relaxed, yet remained glaring at Rebecca.

"That's Lord Death's son." The albino met Rebecca's eyes, his voice holding a warning. "What do you want with him?"

A lump grew in Rebecca's throat as she connected the signature of LD with Lord Death. She felt horrible for missing the obvious. Instead of answering, she asked, "Where is he?"

"He's on a mission today."

"Oh," Rebecca said in a lightheaded tone, a perfect definition of how she felt. "Thank you."

They watched her until she went out of sight, shaky legs slowing her departure.

* * *

><p>Rebecca stared at her hands, covered in pink fuzzy mittens, as her boots scuffed the asphalt. She walked for an hour, yet she confined herself to the immediate area around the basketball court. It was empty besides her.<p>

"Maka said you were looking for me."

Rebecca supposed that Maka was the girl she had 'argued' with. She wasn't sure it even could be considered an argument. She thought of it now as a failure to communicate, on both sides.

"She said you had a picture of a young boy. I'm sure if it was me you're looking for, you could have found a more recent picture or talked to my father."

Rebecca stopped walking and complied with the implied request, taking out her wallet. She put it in the hand that entered her vision. She raised her head, following the photo.

The face that examined the picture had black hair, high cheekbones, straight nose, thin eyebrows, perfect teeth, and familiar lips - she might have thought she was in her teens and looking in a mirror. The white stripes in his hair and gold eyes, curiously two shades, broke the imagination. Something, perhaps a mother's intuition, told her this was her child in front of her. Her Nick.

He handed the picture back to her. "Sorry, I haven't seen anyone that might be him. I apologise for my friend's accusation."

Rebecca folded her wallet back in her pocket. She smiled at his voice; it was musical and soothing and more than she could have hoped for in her Nick.

"It's fine, everything's okay," she said airily. "I'm Rebecca." It sounded strange to introduce one's self to one's child, yet it felt like she was introducing herself to her newborn Nick.

"I am Death the Kid," he introduced himself. Despite the crawling feeling at his proclaimed name, his voice soothed her. "Because of the confusion, I assume you don't know who I am. I'm Lord Death's son. Now if that's all, I'm expected somewhere."

As quick as that, he had gone, out of Rebecca's eyes. Her mouth was dry. She couldn't feel her face, although she knew it wasn't from the cold.

Rebecca had spoken with her Nick, and she would have thought him a ghost if he hadn't spoken. Her child, aged only to teen years since his supposed death. She had to thank Lord Death for saving him. She had to bring Nick home. It was only too obvious that he needed a mother figure in his life. That name, for one. Then, he was formal, even in his walk and clothing. A child should be carefree, not serious. She needed to pull him away from the terror that was the DWMA and raise him with her love.

* * *

><p>After he returned from the mission, Kid went straight to his mansion - his suit had a a spot of blood on the sleeve.<p>

Kid had to report to his father the success of the mission, so he headed to the DWMA. He walked instead of taking Beelzebub, simply because he felt like walking. He ran into Maka on the way, and she gave him a recount of what happened. As he neared the DWMA he happened to glance at the basketball court to see a lady matching Maka's description, so he went to investigate. Kid talked to her to erase any suspicions of her, summing her up as a mother with a runaway or kidnapped child. When he returned to the path to the DWMA, Kid had to stop from a bought of coughing. He surveyed his surroundings, and found nothing. He made a wary note to stay away from Rebecca.

At the Death Room, Lord Death was absent. A small bit irritated, Kid sat in the center of the stone dias and assumed a mediative pose.

Breathe in, breathe out. Connect.

Kid's soul acted as a metronome, a beat that any soul could harmonize with. The resting souls of the afterlife thrummed with their own songs, staying in bubbles so as to not disturb others. These souls his own soul connected to, tempering the songs and guiding them alongside his own. It was his soul, resonating with every soul in the afterlife. There was no soul a Grim Reaper could not be compatible with.

This required his full attention, for if he broke away too sudden, the souls and he would feel the painful backlash. As such, he didn't notice when Spirit and Lord Death entered.

Lord Death shushed Spirit before he could comment on Kid's still form. "He's resonating."

Catching the tone, Spirit whispered, "With who? I don't see a weapon."

Equally quiet, he answered, "The souls of the dead."

While Spirit stared in awe of Kid, Lord Death nudged him. "If you don't want to be pulled in there, I suggest you leave now."

Spirit ran.

Lord Death chuckled. Kid was focusing on souls in the afterlife, not living souls. He sensed a nervous soul outside the Death Room. He let her in, and waited for her to brave the gallows hallway.

"Hello, Rebecca. If you don't mind, please be quiet." Lord Death gestured to Kid.

Rebecca nodded. "Of course," she said in a soft voice.

"So? What did you want to talk about?"

Lord Death noticed Rebecca's shoulders shaking, which quivered faster at his question. She took a calming breath, and asked, "Remember my reason for asking you to keep Kayla safe?"

"Yes; you don't want to lose another child."

She nodded. "I came to Death City because my child was left here 23 years ago. When he was four, he was dying when someone adopted him. I thought he was dead until the other day."

Rebecca started crying, a smile on her face. "You saved him."

"Er." Lord Death tilted his head. "What'd I do?"

Rebecca wiped her tears, watching Kid. "You adopted Nick and gave him life."

Lord Death stared at her like she was crazy. Then, "You're Nick's birth mother."

At her frantic nod, he said in a low voice, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Rebecca was shocked and stared at him. Her face turned to malice. She pointed to Kid and grated out, "That is Nick. My child."

"That's Kid-"

"I've had this conversation before. I know that he is my baby."

Lord Death sighed. "I assume you want to take him home?"

Rebecca nodded, slowly this time, not taking her eyes from Kid.

"Just remember, Kid-"

"Nick," she shot at him.

"-Kid is my child as well. I adopted him, and he grew with me as his father."

Lord Death placed a hand on Kid's head, gently disconnecting the numerous souls from him. At first Kid's brow furrowed in confusion and he tried to reconnect, but relaxed when he felt his father's soul. To Rebecca, Lord Death interrupted his meditation..

"Father?" Kid asked, his eyes landing on Rebecca.

"She is your birth mother." Kid's eyes widened.

"What about the-" Kid lowered his voice to a whisper. "-Divine Law of Origin?"

Behind his mask, Lord Death frowned. "It will pass. Besides, it's not having any effect now."

"We're in the Death Room!" Kid hissed. Lord Death opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off.

"Nick?"

The Grim Reapers glanced at Rebecca. Lord Death placed a hand on Kid's shoulder. "She wants to get to know you. Go with her. You have my permission to travel through the mirror if it becomes too much for you."

Kid stood and smoothed any wrinkles from his suit. "Rebecca, I'm not Nick. Even if the body is his, it's different, and my soul is too. I'm a Grim Reaper."

That apparently meant nothing to Rebecca, as she said, "You're still my baby," her voice as airy and floaty as when she first talked to him.

Kid sighed in defeat. "Can you at least address me as Kid?"

"If that's what your comfortable with, Kid."

Rebecca grabbed Kid's hand and refused to let it go until they reached the end of the gallows hallway. Kid slipped his hand from her grasp, and dodged the rest of her attempts to grab it.

Rebecca's smile faltered, but she chirped, "I want to introduce you to my daughter and husband. I told Victor I was close to finding you, but Kayla doesn't know the orphanage said you were dead."

Kid looked at her sharply. "They had my information at the orphanage? I hired someone to burn it."

"Only the name change form was burned. It a took a while to find out what name you go by now. Why would you want to burn your information?"

"So that no one could connect me with my..old life."

"Why not?" Rebecca reached to place a hand on his shoulder as she had seen Lord Death do, but Kid migrated to her other side. She dropped her hand.

Instead of answering, Kid asked, "Who was-" He hesitated. "-my birth father?"

"I was raped," she said quietly.

"Ah. I'm sorry."

"It was years ago. Besides, you look a lot like me."

Kid was silent.

"In the old picture you had some traits that aren't from my family, but you changed as you grew, apparently."

"Rebecca, I'm not-" Again, a pause. "-him. I apologise for being blunt, but he's dead. I'm a Grim Reaper."

Rebecca smiled. "You're a Smith, and if Lord Death lets me take you home for good, you'll be a Johnson."

Kid closed his eyes, mildly irritated.

"Nick," she said softly, her voice hurt.

Before she could continue, Kid started coughing. The harsh kind of cough that came as a foretelling of life-threatening sickness. Rebecca started to reach for him again, but stopped short and withdrew.

When he recovered, he said, "Don't call me that," saying nothing of the coughing.

The walked the rest of the way in silence, Rebecca leading.

"We can't afford too much, so our home is a small space, filled with everything we've collected over the years."

Rebecca opened the door and led him inside, shouting, "I'm home!"

Kid twitched. And then his other eye twitched, because he cannot stand being or doing anything asymmetrical. Everything, though clean and organised neatly, had unique designs and patterns that made them horribly asymmetrical. Even the table had flowers scattered randomly across its surface, the couch was split down the middle into two colors, and the circle table had a crack in it. The walls had paintings and posters plastered all over them, none of which were symmetrical. And so Kid twitched.

He managed to stop twitching when someone ran into the room; a small girl. She came to a halt in front of Kid, mouth open. Half of her brown hair stuck up at weird angles, the brush still in her hand.

"Kayla, this is Kid, your step-brother. Kid, this is your step-sister, Kayla. She's eleven."

Kayla snapped from her stupor, saying, "You're Death the Kid! You're awesome!" She imitated shooting two guns at an imaginary enemy. "You were awesome yesterday!" Kayla halted and gasped dramatically. "I have an awesome brother!"

"Kayla, what are you going on about?" Rebecca asked, taking a set on the couch.

"He's in the elite classes, and he gave us an awesome demonstration with his weapons yesterday."

Rebecca turned to Kid, confusion etched on her face. "A boy told me you were on a mission."

"I was. I left yesterday at six in the morning. I returned less than an hour ago."

"Then how..?"

"That is a story for another time," he said. At his abrupt tone, Rebecca let the matter drop.

"Do you want anything to drink?"

"Yes, please."

Kid had no intention of telling Rebecca about how Kayla saw him do a demonstration at the academy when he was in Alaska. He started twitching again. He turned his attention to Kayla, who continued to stare at him with her wide blue eyes. Kid stared back, her eyes the only remotely symmetrical thing in the room.

Thus Rebecca walked into an awkward staring contest. To avoid the awkwardness, she shoved a glass of ice tea in each of her kids' hands and sat down. They sat as well, Kid's eyes trained on anything other than the room itself.

It disturbed Rebecca how intense the gold of his eyes were. It didn't calm her that the photo of him had blue eyes. When she continued to think about it, the more Kid's eyes seemed like a sickly yellow to her. Eager to get her mind off that thought, she said, "Kayla said something about your weapons. Does that mean you have more than one?"

"Two, actually," Kid said, eyes never blinking. "Twin guns. I found sisters and made them my weapons."

"Why two?"

"Symmetry," he said, a prideful smile on his face.

"Symmetry?" Kayla echoed. "Why symmetry?"

"Symmetry is in accordance with natural order. It is aestetically pleasing to the eye. The equal weight keeps me completely in balance and allows me to fight with perfect precision. As I am a creature of balance, I must preserve symmetry."

Kayla blinked at his odd wording. She commented, "Your hair isn't very symmetrical." Twitch. "It's got white lines on only one side."

Kid shook, and his voice wracked with sobs and he buried his face in his hands. "I'm garbage. Disgusting. Unsymmetrical, asymmetrical garbage."

"Ni- Kid, you're not garbage," Rebecca said, "I think the lines are cute."

This did nothing. Kayla pouted at his 'episode'. "If you hate them so much, why'd you put them in your hair in the first place?"

"They've been there my entire like, marking me as disgustingly asymmetrical!"

"Then dye them black, or dye the rest of your hair white."

"That doesn't work!"

Rebecca and Kayla stared at the self-deprecating Kid, completely at a loss of how to fix this conundrum. Their salvation came in the form of the sound of the front door swinging open and clicking closed, a masculine yell echoing in the cramped house.

"I'm home!"

Kayla jumped up, a bit too quickly, running to her father. "Daddy! Come see our guest!"

Any further greetings were efficiently quelled by Kid's continued self-deprecation, and the Johnsons sat and stared. Rebecca tried to interrupt Kid at many times, to halt one word in. Kayla brushed her hair, bored. Victor stared at Kid in morbid fascination. After a few minutes, he inched closer to Rebecca. "Who is he?"

"He's-"

Rebecca was interrupted by the doorbell. She frowned, but handed her glass to Victor and went to answer it.

Rebecca opened the door with a smile, hoping whoever it was would ignore the crying and shouted denouncing of worth to live. "Hello, what can I do for you?" She hadn't seen these two girls around before.

"Hi!" the shorter one greeted enthusiastically.

"I'm Liz, and this is my little sister, Patty. Lord Death told us Kid would be here. We've come to pick him up."

Patty looked past Rebecca to peer in the house, smile wide on her face.

"Found him, sis!" Patty's rush inside caught Rebecca by surprise and almost knocked her over. Liz followed at a walk, to where Kid had reached the point where he was tearing at his hair. Rebecca picked up her pace toward him, motherly instincts making her worried.

"C'mon, Kid, get up. You promised to take us shopping, and then Patty wants to practice Soul Resonance after that."

The Johnson family watched as the two girls led Kid out by the arms, completely ignoring his cries about symmetry.

"Who's that kid?" Victor asked once more.

Rebecca smiled at the reminder of her son, odd as he was. "He's Nick."

Victor furrowed his brow and tilted his head left and right, his own crazy version of when he thought hard. "I thought you had Nick 23 years ago."

* * *

><p>"Breathe in, breathe out. Connect." I really like that line. It'll be used again, definitely.<p> 


	6. Breathe in, breathe out, Disconnect

**EDIT**: Sorry for the repeat upload, but I remembered something this morning, and had to fix it. See bottom for more details.

* * *

><p>Kid's self-insulting eventually dissolved into incomprehensible mumbles. Liz stopped Patty from continuing to dislocate Kid's arm and propped Kid against a low wall. They'd left the suburban area, and were at the in-between foresty part of neighborhoods.<p>

"Alright, Kid. Lord Death just shook his head and hummed when we asked him, so don't use that trick on us."

Liz shoved Kid's shoulder back in to its socket, tapping her foot impatiently as Kid gave a pained noise and jerked out of his episode. She asked the question after he had enough time to rub his shoulder.

"Who was that lady and why did Lord Death treat it like something secret?"

"Her name is Rebecca Johnson," Kid answered, frowning at his weapon's behavior. He saw no reason not to answer, however.

"And?" Patty prompted, making Kid wonder what his father had said to make them so curious.

"And?" he repeated.

Liz shouted, "What were you doing there!"

Kid raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you so curious?"

"You don't make friends that easily," she admitted. "Only when someone is with you a lot over time or you're forced to be with them do you actually become friends. It's suspicious that you're at someone's house, with no mention to us."

Kid sighed. "I'm sorry, then. I'll tell you, but we'll have to wait until we get to the Death Room to discuss it."

"Spill it, _now_." Her voice left no room for dispute.

"Did you hear the rumours about the grave of an orphan in the Deathscythe graves?"

Liz frowned. "What does that have to do with this lady?"

"Then you should know that it's empty. There was no body to deliver."

Liz asked, her voice wavering, "This isn't some ghost story, is it?"

Kid ignored her, continuing. "My father knows. He set the stone there, and has me place a buttercup flower on it every year."

"You're the flower fairy?" Patty asked.

"The buttercup flower symbolises humility, neatness, and childishness. As you know, I have an obsession for neatness."

Liz and Patty glanced between each other, but were silent, waiting for Kid to come to a point.

"Rebecca is the..." Kid paused for a moment, looking for proper wording. "...one who birthed the child that the grave is for. When the grave was placed, Lord Death was setting up a ritual. While he rushed to finish, the child was dying. Seconds after the child stopped breathing, Lord Death completed the ritual. It left him weakened, as he had just parted with a fraction of his soul. The child breathed, and took on different features, including gold eyes and white lines in his hair. Lord Death laid the child's soul to rest the next day."

Kid fell silent, signalling that he had finished. Realization slowly dawned on Liz and Patty as pieces of the story clicked in their minds. They stared at each other.

"Rebecca's his mother!"

Cough.

"What was that kid's name?"

"He's Nick, sis."

His vision swam.

"Nick! He used to be an orphan like us!"

He couldn't think straight. Why did he feel hot? Who was talking? What was this noise?

"Now he's got a mommy!"

Coughs racked his lungs, pounding his ribcage. His arms refused to lift his hands to press against the hurt.

"Huh? Kid?"

"Kid? Nick?"

Breathe in, breathe out. Disconnect.

* * *

><p>Maka's soul thrummed with Soul's, resonating at a steady beat. As their souls shifted to match the beat of a song they both knew, her brow furrowed in concentration. They played the song in their own minds, counting on the other to remember enough to keep them both on track.<p>

A miscount in beats in a line shook them, but they jumped back together. It was a hesitation that broke them apart, Maka having to drop Soul in scythe form at the split-second of red-hot conflict between their souls.

"Ow, Maka. Couldn't you have put me down, I don't know, _gently_?" Soul rubbed his head, hissing with pain.

"I couldn't help it; you nearly burned me! You hesitated before the chorus, Soul," Maka defended.

Soul scoffed. "Chorus? We were at the final line. 'So I gotta catch up, time to mash up,' remember?"

"There's a chorus before that part. 'So cool, baby scandalous,'" she matched the attitude of the line, almost mocking it back at him.

"No, there isn't!"

Maka tuned out anything else he would have said, sensing other souls in the vicinity. "Three souls," she muttered, "I'm too far away to sense them clearly."

Maka ran into the woods, cutting off Soul's brooding. He yelled after her, but ended up following. "Hey! Maka!" Soul tripped over a tree root when he noticed Maka had stopped.

"Kid, Liz, and Patty are nearby," Maka explained to him, as though the recent argument had never happened.

"That's what distracted you?" Soul groaned. "Fine, let's go see them."

They started to hear voices, but they couldn't make out the words. There came a screech, and they appeared from the trees to see Patty poking an unconscious Kid, and Liz jumped back from Kid as though he was a ghost.

Soul and Maka yelled greetings as they made their way down to the stone walk, announcing their presence. Liz seemed not to notice, pacing while panicking about something until Soul jumped over the short wall and in front of her, eliciting another shriek. Patty waved to them, and then returned to poking Kid.

"He discovered the stone wall is asymmetrical?" Soul guessed.

Patty answered, "No, it's symmetrical."

Soul smirked at that. "Everything in Death City is symmetrical except Kid. How ironic."

Maka asked, with a bit of laughter, "What did he obsess over this time?"

"He didn't obsess over anything," Liz admitted. "Kid explained something to us and then he just fainted."

Patty followed her next poke with, "Nick?"

Kid, still unconscious, broke into a fit of coughing. This somehow made Liz shriek again and her legs buckled. Maka's motherly instincts took over and she pressed the back of her hand to Kid's forehead.

"He has a fever," Maka said. This only served to agitate Liz further.

"What's going on?" Liz all but screeched. "What's going on? Kid doesn't get sick, he doesn't get fevers, so what's going on?"

"Hold on, calm down," Soul said, stopping her pacing by grabbing her arm. "What was Kid telling you before he passed out?"

Liz glanced at Kid, a conflicted emotion passing her face. "You know the grave that has a bunch of rumour about it?"

They nodded.

"The grave is Kid's, but instead of being buried, Lord Death made him a Grim Reaper."

"So he's Nick?" Soul and Maka hardly lingered over the conclusion as Liz and Patty had done.

Kid broke into more coughing, and this time his eyes flew open. He glared at all of them, and spoke when he could, his raspy voice cutting like acid and unerving them all.

"If you're going to discuss my origin, then wait until we get to Death Room."

Kid stood with help from Patty, and summoned a mirror, the purple skull design barely showing in the sunlight. It displayed the Death Room, and before Lord Death would greet them, Kid snapped, "I'll wait for you there if you want a full explanation."

Patty and Liz nodded, the latter sighing. Maka and Soul glanced at each other in confusion. The scythe and scythe Meister froze as he walked through the mirror. The mirror promptly disappeared, leaving them to wonder what just happened.

* * *

><p>"Kid, what happened back there?" Liz asked once the rest had made it to the Death Room.<p>

Maka rushed in ahead of her, placing a hand on the irritated Grim Reaper's forehead.

"Your temperature is normal."

"Of course it is. I'm in the Death Room right now, my most direct connection to the afterlife, and thus my power is at its highest capacity."

That halted all of their thoughts, as they had never heard the Death Room described as more than from where Lord Death operated. Currently, Lord Death was absent from the location. Where else he might go was a mystery to the students of the DWMA, as he was rarely seen anywhere else unless it was the Foundation Day Eve. The last anyone had reported seeing him elsewhere was Kid's first day at the academy.

"Are you going to explain everything now?" asked Soul.

"I said I would, didn't I? I ask that you do not repeat anything I'm about to say, both for privacy and for my safety."

The wording, again, added more questions, but they nodded.

"Liz and Patty have no doubt told you what I told them," Kid said, addressing Maka and Soul. "There is more. I am under what is called the Divine Law of Origin. After I reach a certain level of power it will wear off, but for now, anything connected to Nick will cause me pain."

"What does this Law entail?" Maka asked.

"Mortals aren't allowed to know what it is, only how it applies to me."

Maka involuntarily took a step back at his wording. They had never said or done anything to create any distinction between Kid and the rest of them, they spoke of him as a friend, nothing else, and Kid had never said anything that placed them lower in his eyes, either. Blackstar only used his Reaper powers as an excuse for a fight every once in a while. Kid continued as if he hadn't noticed Maka's action. He might have not, as he had his eyes closed.

"When I come in contact with anything with a connection with Nick, the Law 'reminds' me of how it felt to die."

Kid spoke everything without feeling, as though he was trying to detach himself emotionally from everything. With how he referred to them, it might have been impossible for him to react to his own words.

"Rebecca is not my mother, but she's too heartbroken to see me as anything other than Nick. Father doesn't know how to deal with this, so he's letting her have me for now. If she so much as holds my hand I'll be in pain again."

"So that's why you don't want us repeating anything," Liz surmised. "If we say your name you'll get hurt."

"Nick is not my name!" Kid yelled, finally showing emotion. They flinched at the sudden outburst. His eyes became unfocused, and in an unsteady tone, almost as if trying to convince himself, he said, "Nick died, and I was created. From Lord Death's soul and residue from Nick's soul."

"Ah," Soul said in realization. "So that's what you meant when you said Lord Death reproduced asexually."

Liz groaned. "Please, don't bring that up again."

Maka spoke up, "We should tell Blackstar about this."

Kid made a dismissive gesture. "As long as I'm here or out of earshot when you explain."

"Are there any other Laws you're under?" Soul asked.

Kid shrugged noncommittedly. "They're like the laws of physics and math. They have been observed and recorded, and in some cases don't apply. I'm not at liberty to tell you unless it concerns you."

"Another Law, huh?"

They continued bombarding him with questions; all of them went unanswered. they couldn't pry another word out of him. Kid never met their eyes.

* * *

><p>Tight-lipped smiles. Stiff nods. Maka could never hide anything from her weapon when something was bothering her. After another day of her off behavior at school, Soul waited until she settled with a book to approach her.<p>

"I know something's bothering you. Spit it out."

Maka took a deep, calming breath before she began quietly. "I can't stand it when one of us keeps a secret from the rest. Especially with a secret like Kid's; that's the kind of thing we need to know in case he gets hurt like the other day." Her voice rose in crescendo, and Soul kept one eye on the book in her hand, wary of it becoming a threat. "I know I should respect his privacy, but I can't believe he kept this from us! It really worried Liz, and he hadn't even told her about it before. And she's his weapon!"

"I don't think he's telling us everything," Soul commented when Maka paused to catch her breath. "He wouldn't look at any of us the whole time. He had no reason to hide anything at this point except these other 'Laws'." He growled. "If these 'Laws' are even real. they sound too far-fetched to me, and I turn into a scythe on a daily basis."

"Y-yeah! You just can't measure something like that, and nothing could initiate the effects of sickness from hearing a name or words used in a certain context," Maka babbled on, her emotions still raging. She'd run out of reason to be angry, and now Soul gave her more to go off on. Another thought appeared in her mind, but she grit her teeth before she gave it voice. It wasn't for her to decide where to draw the line between mortal and immortal.

There was a knock from the door. Maka gripped harder to the book in her hand. She couldn't hit Soul, not when he was sympathetic to her cause.

"SUR-"

"MAKA-CHOP!"

Down went the book on Ragnarok's head, him having popped out of Crona's back when the door opened, inadvertantly saving his Meister from the Maka-chop.

"What was that for, fat-ankles?"

"Really, Maka. I appreciate the effort, but Crona and Ragnarok don't respond well to punishment therapy."

Maka put the book down and apologized to the Meister and weapon, explaining that she thought they would be someone else.

"I pity the fool who scorned you," observed Molly, Crona's new therapist. She was all smiles the next second, her light brown curls seeming to bounce with her mood. "I was hoping you weren't busy. The power went out in the visitor rooms, Crona isn't ready for the dark, and your place is familiar to him."

"Of course Crona can hang out with us. I think Papa gave me some board games for my last birthday." Maka turned to Soul. "They're in the broom closet. I'll make us some snacks."

* * *

><p>Blackstar and Tsubaki were told of the Law of Origin. Blackstar made the mistake of ranting over how lame the name Nick was, and only understood the Law when Kid passed out during his rant. Rebecca and Kid continued to make small talk, Kid making regular visits to her house. Occasionally Kayla would start a conversation on fighting techniques or what she was learning in class that week, resulting in Rebecca almost having a heart attack, but she smiled that her children were getting along. At least once a day, Rebecca would slip and address Kid as Nick. Twice she worried over his health when he started coughing.<p>

"Hey, the rest of us are going to play basketball when Maka and Soul get back from their special lesson. Want to come?" Liz asked Kid.

"Rebecca wants me to walk her daughter home because of the kishin egg they're catching."

"'Kay then."

Kayla grabbed Kid's arm before he could even walk out of the classroom, and started dragging him along.

"My I ask why you decided it's necessary to pull me along like this?"

"I found out I'm a weapon today!" Kayla chirped, skipping even while dragging Kid. It gave him a headache. He quickly righted himself, releasing Kayla's grip with a twist of his wrist.

"Have you found a compatible Meister yet?"

Kayla stopped skipping, and rolled her head around as a strange way to look elsewhere. "Not yet. I was too busy seeing how many ways I could transform."

"I _am_ a Grim Reaper, and Grim Reapers are compatible with all weapons. I could give you some hints toward looking for a partner."

"Really? You'd do that for me?" Kayla bubbled, bouncing in circles around Kid. With an excited noise, she bounced into his hand as a sword.

He felt her weight, and tossed the hilt of the weapon between his hands. The design was simple, but perplexing. The entirety of the golden hilt and blade were covered in small engravings of triangles, all the same size and depth, with a simple design of symmetry on a minuscule level. Her soul buzzed in his hands, but over time it pumped with strong, commanding beats.

When he swung the blade, he felt her soul take charge, trying to direct his soul into a mock fight. He followed the instructions, feeling her delighted surprise at doing so. He spent several minutes doing this, admiring her symmetry the entire time.

"You're the top of your class in using a sword, aren't you?" Kid said after a time.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Kayla giggled from the reflection in her blade. The engraved triangles obscured most of her face, but he could see her to the extent that he could see a small white scar above her heart.

"Your partner would be more of a follower than leader. Not someone with fierce loyalty, but...gullible."

Kayla giggled and transformed back. "Can you do that with all weapons?"

"Of course. The more experienced weapons can adjust their wavelength for more Meisters to wield them, and most high-ranking Meisters can adjust for newer weapons."

"You must be an awesome Meister, Kid. You have two weapons!"

Kid shrugged off the praise with a small smile. "Shouldn't we get you home before Rebecca worries you've been eaten by that kishin egg?"

Kayla pouted. "It's fun watching her panic... But she can be overwhelming when I finally show up."

They arrived at Rebecca's house a few minutes later than usual. They found Rebecca staring at the clock in mounting horror, and she shrieked in surprise when Kayla yelled, "I'm home!"

Kid stepped out of the way of Rebecca, letting Kayla be attacked by the hug.

"I'm a weapon, Mom!"

"A weapon?" Rebecca looked to Kid. "But you're a Meister, Nick."

Kid shrugged, and cleared his throat to hide the cough. "Victor might have dormant weapon blood. Anyone can be a Meister, but weapon blood is a genetic trait."

"I'm a sword!" Kayla announced happily.

"Who's your Meister? Do I get to meet them?"

Kayla rolled her head around once again, focusing on a painting that had driven Kid crazy for a week before he learned not to look at the ceiling. "I only found out today, Mom."

"Then what about your brother as your Meister?"

"I already have two weapons," Kid said, preventing any further ideas from forming. "I'd like to make them Deathscythes before I think of having another weapon."

Rebecca pouted, making a face much like the one Kayla had made at the thought of going home early. "Not even for your sister?"

"No."

"Alright." Rebecca sighed. "Would you like some cake? I just finished the icing on it a few minutes ago."

Kid shook his head. "I sensed the kishin egg on my way here, and I have to report to Father for a mission."

Rebecca's face went stony, as it always did when Kid mentioned Lord Death. "Of course," she said stiffly. Kayla closed the door behind him.

At the end of the street Kid stopped. "Lyssa?"

Whoever he had seen turned on his heel, the single bright red eye peeking from black hair, vanishing the next Kid blinked.

* * *

><p>Breathe in, breathe out. Connect. Disconnect.<p>

There was going to be more, but I decided to move that part to the next chapter. Instead, I added the part with Maka ranting to Soul about secrets. I decided to sow some conflict within the trio.

Now that has me wanting to write a story where either Soul or Maka has a spiritual crisis. I think it would be funny and intriguing because, well, just look at Lord Death and Kid. Hard not to believe in a higher power when you exchange physical high-fives with one every day.

Random: The ending for this story is finished and on another website. Reviews are loved~!

**EDIT**: The second to last sentence has been changed. I had to check something, and finally decided how to put that. That was the main reason I spent so much time on this chapter, but then I forgot to address it before I put up the chapter! Anyway, all is well now. The name is a clear hint as to what happens next chapter. If you bother to look it up, of course.


	7. Spin, Weave, Cut

I tried a fight scene this chapter. That's why it took so long to write this, since I was so confused on how to write it. ...and then I noticed the POV switches between Kid and Liz without proper transition or explanation, but I didn't bother fixing that much...

* * *

><p>Kid nearly ran into a young woman, barely into her twenties, when he turned a corner, but backpedaled in to his weapons, crashing all three of them to the floor. Kid stood, brushing the dust from his suit, asking in scathing tone, "What do you think you're doing, Child? You could have killed me."<p>

Liz and Patty stared at Kid for the tone of voice and the harsh wording he used, struck gobsmacked.

"What? How do you know who I am?" The girl stepped forward, and Kid took a step back. She had vibrant, curly red hair, and a splatter of freckles on her face.

"Kid what are you doing?" Liz nearly screeched. She turned to the girl and apologised profusely. "I'm sorry, he's usually polite. I'm Liz, this is Patty, this is Death the Kid. He's a little aggravated about the kishin egg we just fought." She took Kid's and Patty's arms to drag them away. "We'll be going now-"

"Oh!" The lady perked up, and jumped back, teetering on her toes as if afraid to step on something. "I'm sorry, Kid! I didn't know it was you!"

Patty paused and halted Liz's babbling, forcing her to stop mid-step. "Huh?"

The young woman talked to Kid, as though Liz and Patty weren't there. "I was looking for the rest of us, but got lost on the way to your Divine Room."

Kid stared at her. "The stripes didn't give me away?" he muttered. He asked, "The rest? I saw Lyssa earlier, but others are here?"

Liz and Patty glanced between the two, itching with questions.

"How can you not know?" the one called Child gasped. "We felt an unbalance so we came, but now I'm lost."

"I don't know where the others would be, but they wouldn't be at the Death Room. Perhaps at the main hall, instead."

"Thank you, Kid!"

Liz rushed to Kid's side once he started to lead to the main hall. "Who is this girl?" she whispered. "I've never seen her before."

"She is Child of Life, my divine counterpart."

"You mean there are other gods?"

"Of course. With Death there must be Life. It seems that other gods and godlings are here as well. I wonder why?"

Liz snickered. With a glare from Kid, she confessed, "Godling sounds like a cute word. And to think that you're a godling, well-"

Kid cut her off with, "I get it."

Liz commented off-handedly, "It seems like every day now we're reminded that you're not like the rest of us."

That harmless statement killed all conversation for the rest of their (albeit short, it must be called) journey. They turned corners and found their way to the main hall, which was curiously quite a distance from the entrance hall.

A group of mismatched people milled about, all seeming to be waiting for something. Some of them would pause in conversation to glance at one of the entrances, occasionally an annoyed expression crossing their face. They all had defining features that Liz would be hard pressed to find present in any other individual. The odd scene was much more than simply a sight, however. Liz could feel a power in the air that made her feel as insignificant as an ant nibbling a crumb on the pavement. The presence weighed much heavier than how she felt around Lord Death, and she had spent enough time with his son to recognize it.

It felt very contrasting, and the difference to the feeling Lord Death and Kid gave off opened her eyes to identifying all of it. In one direction, she felt something of a negative vibe that irked her to no end, and in another, she felt energetic with freedom. It all felt very different than from the power she felt around Lord Death and Kid, and now with all this contrast, the two Grim Reapers felt the same, even if there was a variation in pressure. Her Meister made her feel at ease, relaxed, and content with the state of everything. None of this clamor matched. It acted the same as alcohol, pumping her emotions and enhancing every thought. With a glance at Child, she could almost claim she had the ability of soul perception, as a previously hidden glow from her made Liz feel as if she was sunbathing. Antsy, she resorted to her weapon form, relaxing at once with Kid's hand around her.

Kid said nothing, and looked to Patty expectantly. Her face flickered between opposing emotions before she retreated to gun form as well.

"Child!"

A woman, scarlet tresses flowing to her waist, waved to Child. Kid stepped out of the way as she ran to her mother. Reminded of this immediate danger, his gold eyes flashed around the room. They targeted a young girl holding the hand of his father. Keeping one eye on Child and her mother, he stepped beside his father, slipping his own hand into the child's free hand.

She looked up at him with a frown. Cryptically, she said, "An end can't meet an end."

"An end became my beginning, and I am an end," he answered her riddle. She continued to frown, but nodded in acceptance.

"Hello, Kid." Lord Death nodded to Kid. "I assume the mission was a success?"

"Yes. It was exactly as the request had stated. Why are other divine beings here?"

"Your brushes with the Law of Origin have caused quite the disturbance."

"No one took any notice before."

"That's because it's normal for it to happen once a year for you. You seem to have had a number of incidents, which have built up enough power to cause concern."

The girl between them fidgeted and asked, "Can I go now?"

"No," Lord Death and Kid shot at her.

"Who's the girl?" Liz asked from her weapon form.

"I," the little girl stressed with cute importance, even raising her chin, "am Choice. The connector between Life and Death."

Lord Death added, "We and Life can't touch each other otherwise-"

"-both sides would cease to exist," Kid said, continuing his father's sentence seamlessly. Liz tried not to shudder at the creepy coincidence.

"So that's why you acted that way toward Child."

The red-haired woman who had called to Child rushed over to them then, but managed to trip over the flat floor and into Kid, but he had his grip on Choice, so the girl fell over with them. Lord Death stayed upright. He had let go of Choice at the last moment, and bent to help her up as though oblivious to his son's predicament.

"Hello, Life!"

The woman, Life, ignored Kid for the moment and jumped up with the same energy as her name. She smoothed down her white gown. "Good morning, Death."

Kid stood, copying Life's movement in smoothing his suit without noticing the other's action. Standing was something of a feat when he was holding someone's hand and carrying two guns. He made a small bow to Life. "Greetings, Spinner of Life."

She raised an eyebrow in small humor, and greeted him with similar formality. "Young Cutter." She bowed her head to him, then Choice. "Weaver."

Choice squirmed her hand free of Kid, who instantly stepped back, to offer it to Life. She smiled when the woman took it.

"Through Choice, a Life will meet an End," Choice sighed.

"Little Cutter, I haven't seen you since you were eight!" Life smiled at Kid. "I thought you would be eleven at this time. Weaver hasn't changed since then."

"It's tiring trying to act as the Grim Reaper when all everyone sees is a kid. Choice has no such responsibilities."

"Death, do you know why there's been a disturbance in the balance? We traced it back here, to Death City."

"I do." Lord Death sighed. "The mother of the child I used a vessel for Kid has found him, and believes him to be her son."

"You didn't use a living child for sweet Cutter, did you?"

"No." Lord Death shook his head firmly. "I found him at the orphanage, dying of illness. I tried to tell her otherwise, but she's stubborn."

"Darling Cutter." Liz could see the starting of annoyance in how her Meister tightened his grip around her. She wondered at all of the synonyms for 'young' this woman could tack onto a nickname of Cutter.

"You have to stop seeing this woman."

Kid nodded. Life's eyes were drawn to the guns. "Oh, are those your Deathscythes? Can I say hello?"

"They're not Deathscythes yet. They're a bit overwhelmed right now."

"That's understandable. Why don't you go say hello to the others? Lyssa, Aphrodite, and Nature are here."

"There are more?" Patty gasped, as Kid walked away from the chatting opposites.

Liz cut across her. "What did Life mean when she said she expected you to be eleven? And that the little girl hasn't changed from seven years ago?"

"It wasn't seven years ago. It was twelve."

"You-"

"Kid!"

Kid walked over to three mismatched people, one of them about Kid's height, the other two fully-developed women. The young male had a mop of black hair that covered one of his eyes, the visible eye a bright red. Liz mistook him for a girl at first glance, but realized the body structure was filled-out in a masculine, yet slim, way that was impossible for girls to achieve. He had an Asian complexion, and wore a leather jacket over formal dress clothes. The older two wore dresses, both short and revealing more than appropriate for public wear. One dressed in all green, the other in pink, and both had blonde hair and not a wrinkle tarnishing their faces. The one in green had green eyes and a design of leaves tattooed on her neck, while the other had soft purple eyes. Something about the woman in pink had Liz entranced, but she associated it with the feelings in the room and curled closer to Kid's soul wavelength.

"Well, chibi Death?" The teenager asked, sounding bored.

Kid ignored the tone. "I've been causing this."

The women sputtered, and the one in green looked about to slap Kid when the red-eyed male spoke again. "Stop it, then." His voice was just as before, and it somehow threw the woman in the pink dress for a loop.

"Lyssa, what-"

Lyssa cut her off in more of his lazy tone. "It's Wrath. I've said again and again to be called Wrath, if not Zuou."

"Zuou?" Instantly all attention was on Liz. She blushed, turning the gun an interesting metallic sheen of pink, as she had whispered the word.

"I live in Japan. It translates to Hatred here. Anyway." His tone turned to scathing as he focused his attention back to the pink-dressed woman. "I'm not like Kid here, Ishtar. I'm my own person, not a copy of my Divine parent with a quirk thrown in. In other words, you haven't met me."

Ishtar faltered. "Even so, you're Lyssa, even if you're male. Where's the anger? I was told that every Wrath before you has been angry all the time."

Wrath snorted. "I have no reason to be angry right now other than the reason you're giving me; it would spur you to think twice about assuming what I'm like. Sure, anger keeps us from being too sappy with everyone we see. It creates the conflict that we must solve to grow. It keeps us three-dimensional. But there's a time for anger, and a time for calm."

Kid chuckled. "Last I saw you, you were more interested in evading me than spouting off philosophy." Wrath smirked.

"I noticed you got over your obsession for symmetry." Wrath frowned as his _one visible eye_ ran over Kid's suit and Liz and Patty. "For the most part."

The one left to be named said, "The reunion is all well and nice, but why have you been causing the disturbance, Kid? A Law is not something to be taken lightly."

Kid frowned. "I was unaware of the effects it would cause. It's the Law of Origin."

"How does that affect you again?" Wrath asked himself. "Life can't be affected, Choice's consequence is rebirth-"

"Lyssa!" the one in green yelled, and gestured to the guns in Kid's hands. "We're in the company of mortals, if you hadn't noticed!"

"Just thinking aloud, madam," he said, irking her at his random usage of formality. Wrath fell silent anyway, tapping his chin. "Ah, that's right, you're a lot like us in that instance. Someone came across your name?"

Kid winced, prompting Wrath to make a sort of victory sign. "It's not just that. A woman is claiming me to be her child."

"Ouch."

"Kid, you can't let this go on," the green-dressed woman ordered.

"Nature, I think he knows that. It's probably some woman so desperate she can't see that he probably looks nothing as he did before. If there was a picture of him in the first place."

Kid sighed. "She hasn't said anything about the lines or my eyes."

Wrath threw his arms up and his head to the ceiling. "Behold! The evidence!"

"Has anyone seen Child?" Ishtar asked. "I saw her leave some time ago. She has a horrible sense of direction. Kid, maybe you could go find her?"

Kid nodded and left the room to the hallway. The weight lifted from Liz, and she returned to her human form. Patty did the same, and they both gave audible sighs. Bright neon light shined through Liz's eyelids, and she moved to Kid's side, Patty on the other, as was habit. Maka and Soul stared at them from the mirror.

"Where's Lord Death?" Maka asked. Kid's gold eyes widened, staring at the floating blue orb in her hands.

"What are you doing with an innocent soul?" Kid all but demanded.

"That's why we're here. A kishin egg almost ate it."

"Is there someone outside the Death Room? With really red hair?" The question caught them off-guard and they both stared at him. Slowly, they nodded.

"Can you show her to the main hall? Bring the soul, but don't let her touch it."

Maka looked to Soul, who shrugged and headed out. The mirror vanished.

Under his breath, Kid muttered, "Why didn't the Keres collect the soul?" Liz ignored this; with Kid, some things she wouldn't get an explanation for, and the Keres were one of those things.

When the three arrived, Maka still had the soul cupped in her hands. She held it out to Kid, and it gave a small flash as he absorbed it. He walked back to the door, Liz and Patty returning to their weapon forms. Maka and Soul inquired as to what was going on.

"It's a gathering of deities, or forces. Only a few are here, but we all give off a sort of energy that might make you uncomfortable."

"Kid's a godling!" Patty chirped, followed by giggles. Maka nor Soul said anything, evidently not finding it funny enough to laugh or crack a smile.

Kid held the door open for them, and Maka and her weapon were treated to the sight of Lord Death chatting pleasantly with another woman, holding the hands of a young girl between them. She had fallen asleep, and now hung adorably from their clutches.

"Where's Papa? I thought he would be with Lord Death."

Kid watched them carefully. Maka looked wide-eyed and inquisitive as ever. As for Soul, he was trembling, shooting nervous glances towards each divine being. "I assume he left once it became too much for him."

Maka opened her mouth, but was interrupted. "You brought friends, chibi Death. You'll introduce them, un?"

"This is Maka and her weapon, Soul."

"Konnichiwa, Maka," greeted Wrath. "You might want to hold on to scythe boy there."

"Soul?" Maka turned around in time to see a flurry of emotions cross Soul's face. He fainted into his scythe form, landing in Maka's hands. "Soul! What happened to him?"

Kid answered. "Same as Liz and Patty. Even a small group of us can affect mortals with similar results. Your anti-demon wavelength must be protecting you from the effects of the power we give off. Someone in weapon form is protected a small bit from it." He held up his glocks. "It helps that they're focusing on my wavelength."

"So." Wrath clapped his hands, bringing attention back to him. He waved in a general direction around the room. "This is Nature and Ishtar, you showed Child of Life to this place, Life is talking with the older version of Death, and the between them is Choice, or Destiny if you prefer. I'm Wrath."

"So what do you all do? I know Grim Reapers ferry souls to the afterlife, but what do you all do?"

Wrath sat on the ground. "Standing got boring," he said as way of explanation to the confused faces above him. "It was time for a change of scenery. Whatever. Un. All of us, we do nothing. Life, Death, and Choice have actual jobs, but us, we're something like madness."

"How so?"

"Everything has a bit of madness in it, but if that little bit was eliminated, it would come back. If the source was found and eliminated, it wouldn't come back. So tell me now: what part of that analogy applies to us?"

"You're the source."

"Pocky for the little lady! Correct. Our mere presence keeps our quality in the world, keeps things in balance. When we're like this, we subconsciously give off our own power to keep balance, because each person is like a block of their energy." He nodded to the scythe. "That's why scythe boy acted like that. We directly affect feelings and emotions. The other scythe guy was carried out."

"That's very interesting. So this is your first time in Death City? How do you like it so far?"

"To be honest, I expected chibi Death to still be doing all sorts of things abroad. With good reason. This place is calm. Only action going on is outside the city. I guess he ran out of wandering souls to put to rest."

"I like it calm," snapped Nature. "Death allowed plants to grow, and that makes it relaxed."

"It would be drab otherwise," commented Ishtar.

"What do you say, chibi Death?" Wrath asked. "All this energy in the room is making me itch for a fight." In a sultry tone of voice that could be interpreted in another, ahem, suggestive meaning, he added, "Yaru ka?"

"You are disturbed," Kid replied in a deadpan. The others were confused; even with Maka's heritage, she had never been to Japan, so none of them knew any Japanese.

Wrath threw back his head and laughed. "I can't resist a snarky joke every once in a while. Besides, you're the only one who can understand me. Want to go outside? We'll have a fight, without weapons."

Liz found herself passed into Patty's hands, and the energy in the air diminished to a small fraction of what it was as the group quitted the room.

"My offer still stands."

"Shut up."

"Oh, I get it. You're in denial."

* * *

><p>Wrath attacked with a punch just before they reached outside of the academy, earning him a late counter from Kid that threw him out near the entrance steps, but not before Wrath managed to scratch him. He also gained a whiny, "Couldn't you have waited a minute longer? You almost damaged the wall, and then the symmetry would have been off!"<p>

Wrath grinned, and stomped his foot, dislodging a stone. He stared at Kid, nonplussed by his shock, and said in a very dry tone, "Oh dear. One stone over here is out of place."

Predictably, this made Kid angry. Kid slid into his Reaper stance, prompting Wrath to call, "I thought you knew how to fight without your weapons!"

Wrath threw himself down and to the side in time to miss Kid's kick, and dove right back into the fray. Kid caught him a few times, leaving him suffering with a bruised arm and shoulder, but Wrath kept dodging in a very random fashion. It confused Maka greatly, how he could actually make the method work, especially against Kid.

Wrath poked Kid in the back, freezing him in place with a pressure point. Wrath knocked him over with another poke, and proceeded to beat his back like a masseuse. Kid suddenly snapped up, making Wrath jump several feet away. When Kid ran at him again, the same trick didn't work twice; Kid wouldn't let him dodge to gain an opening. The resulting retaliation from Kid broke the stone under their feet, and the bystanders heard a multitude of fleshy cracks.

Kid stepped back. The audience waited in silence to see if Wrath would rise from the newly-formed crater.

Wrath stood and stretched, even yawned. Kid didn't relax from his stance until Wrath had disappeared back inside the school, throwing a 'thanks' over his shoulder.

* * *

><p>Rebecca barely held herself back from running into the middle of the fray. One of her kids fighting: her worst nightmare. His weapons were even watching, not fighting with him.<p>

"Rebecca? Are you coming?" One of her friends, Alicia, called from several feet ahead, having stopped when she realized Rebecca wasn't following anymore. Rebecca tore her eyes from Kid being pounded on the back like some sort of musical instrument and felt her stomach roil. She took a shaky step on her now-trembling legs, her thoughts putting together a conclusion that demanded drastic actions.

Rebecca's heart went out to her son. All these past years, had he been repeatedly beat up like so all this time? Forced to hide it because he felt that he had a reputation to keep as the mayor's son? That, she thought, might explain his behavior toward her; cold, formal, and altogether reserved. Maybe he had become so used to antagonistic attitudes and resentment that he didn't know how to love anymore and he acted cold to prevent further betrayal. Rebecca believed her line of thought was just and right, in her state, addled as she was from the constant shifts between grief and joy since the time she spoke to her mother at her deathbed.

The people that seemed to be closest to him were not, by far, the best to be even associated with. Lord Death wore a long, bulky robe that could hide anything beneath it, from a burly intimidating body to an assortment of chemicals or weapons or other questionable material. Even the mask sent shivers down her back. It might hide a leering smile, shifty eyes, or possibly a face ravaged with scar from any number of violent incidents. The girls were friendly enough, if their personalities were a tad strange. Still, they were _girls_. And her son was a _teenage boy_. The skimpy shirts they wore did not help the matter.

The school contributed to this. Fights occurred there every day, especially in the elite classes, from what Kayla said. It forced her son out on dangerous assignments constantly, away from her, risking his life, not even as a weapon that would not be the target of an enemy's wrath. The idea of an enemy that would not hesitate to kill scared her even more.

Those long sleeves could be hiding something. The girls always at his side could be dressed at his command or might have a goal in mind themselves. The lack of notoriety in the city could be because he or Lord Death hid him. The formality could be hiding any number of psychological issues.

This all led to one conclusion, one that needed to be acted upon: Her son was not safe here.

"Coming, Alicia!"

* * *

><p>The next day, Kayla brought home her new Meister to show Rebecca. Hiro was a nice boy with constant assurances of his skills. With such surety of his own competency, Rebecca was glad he was Kayla's Meister. Kid, of course, came home with them, so while Kayla was chatting with her new Meister, Rebecca talked with Kid in another room to allow them some privacy.<p>

"How long have you been going to the DWMA? I imagine you've been there a while, to be in the elite classes." She kept her tone light in the thought of the years of battles he must have had.

"A little less than a year. I asked to be enrolled." Her heart rose.

Then what were you doing before?"

"Travelling, taking missions, and training." Her heart fell again.

"Lord Death must have had many places to show you if you travelled for that long."

"Father-" Her nails pressed on the glaze around her cup. "-couldn't accompany me. His soul is anchored to Death City, so he can't leave. I would have an escort with me until several years ago. For the past few years I've had my weapons with me."

"He lets you travel alone?" Rebecca barely stopped herself from shrieking.

"He has confidence in my abilities. I have been fulfilling my duties as a Grim Reaper while he is unable."

There he went with that 'Grim Reaper' idea again; Rebecca wished he would stop with that nonsense. It irked her to no end. It was a self-proclaimed title, a fantasy. "That's no way to raise a child."

Kid raised an eyebrow. "He does the best he can considering his position. He's a single parent and has to watch over a school and city."

"I don't want a child of mine raised like that." The widening of his eyes told Rebecca Kid understood where she was going. "I want my children safe, and I would always be there to cheer them on or help them when they need it. You would have a mother, father, and even a sister. I want you in my life. Will you be my son again? Do I have your support if I battle for custody over you?"

Kid slowly shook his head. Her heart felt hollow.

"For me? It's breaking my heart to have finally found you and hear you treated like this."

"I'm sorry, Rebecca, I really am. But I'm a different person. I'm a Grim Reaper, and Lord Death is my father."

Rebecca bit her lip. She had nothing to say, and how could she say she didn't trust Lord Death because that mask of his sent up red flags in her mind? She had one option left. Without a word, she went to the kitchen, leaving Kid sitting there. She opened a cupboard and reached in the back to come back out with a jar. She unscrewed the lid and dumped three tablespoons of white powder in a steaming cup. She stirred it, and made sure to make another cup of the drink, without the powder.

Rebecca gave a cup to Kid, who must have thought of a reason for her making it, as he took a sip of it. Rebecca treated hers as a comfort, staring into its depths as she nursed it close. Her eyes flicked up to catch glimpses of Kid every now and then. At first she felt strangely calm, like it was Kayla she drank with after a nightmare. Kid didn't react as Kayla would, however. He adopted the same pose as Rebecca, absently drawing minute pictures in the swirls of the drink with his spoon. She steadily became more antsy as time went by, barely able to stop herself from picking at the seams in the cushions from her nerves.

Finally Liz and Patty came to take Kid away, and nothing had changed in his behavior.

Rebecca couldn't understand it. When Kayla drank it, she would fall asleep like a light. Rebecca had taken it before as well, with the same results. She couldn't think of any possible explanation for Kid to be able to resist the effects of the sleeping drug.

* * *

><p>Zuou: hatred<p>

Chibi: small.

Un: yeah

Konnichiwa: hello

Yaru ka: "You wanna fight?" or, with a suggestive tone, it means something much more suggestive. Look it up if you want the exact translation. I would prefer to keep every part of my stories K+. Pretty much, Wrath was trying to get Kid angry. He is Anger, after all. Decide what you wish about Kid.

Keres: In Greek mythology, Death's sisters. They collect the souls of the fallen and send them to Hades. They can be compared to the Valkyrie of Norse mythology. Those stories with Kid reaping souls are very touching, but I find it hard to believe that he could reap even a fraction of the dead manually and still have time for kishin hunting. There would even be a 800 year period where Lord Death was unable to reap souls manually. They had to have help.

Lyssa: Spirit of mad rage and frenzy. In Greek mythology, Lyssa is female. At first I was using a made-up name: Venomous Brat, and changed it after a Mythology class. He comes off as annoying to the rest of the characters, but he explained the effect to Maka, and as Anger, it's pretty much in his nature to make everyone angry.

Ishtar: Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, and lust. And war, but I don't care about that right now. She's the aspect of lust here.

Spinner/Weaver/Cutter: There are the Fates/Morai in Greek mythology, and they are three old crones. They represent life, death, and whatever is between them. They spend their time weaving a loom/tapestry (depending on what site you're reading), each with a different job. One spins the threads, another weaves and measures, the last cuts the threads. In Greek mythology, they are separate from the gods of life and death, but here they are the same. Those of you who've read the ending of this story (which is on another site, but only the ending chapter) now understand "Cutter".

I felt I needed something to make this story's idea of deities different than that one with Life Jr and Life Staffs. So, I had a friend decide what forces to use, and created Laws to prevent myself from subconsciously copying another story (I've done that before). There's a lot of little hints toward all this Divine stuff in the scene with all the godlings and gods. They all have multiple names, based on what mythology you're looking at this from. I decided to make Wrath/Anger/Lyssa Japanese to create some diversity.

Life and Nature: technically, these two should be the same person, as Gaia or Mother Earth. I'm smooshing together all sorts of mythologies here, so it's confusing. Life represents the spirit, soul, whatever it is that gives us life. Nature represents most creation myths in how the land and plants and animals came to be. Nature provides the husk for life, Life provides the spirit to make it flourish. It gets confusing when you start to think about mythology. You have a god/goddess that is the 'mother' of all things, and then all the other gods start creating creatures, and sometimes you have two opposites gods creating creatures on opposite sides of the spectrum, then some myths have a god and goddess conceiving everything through normal pregnancy, then the idea of a 'mother goddess' with matriarchal societies where a single goddess created everything...eurgh. So confusing when you smoosh it all together...

I decided to call Liz and Patty 'glocks' at one point. It's the type of gun which they turn into.

I recently heard the quote, "there's dropping a hint, and then there's hitting someone in the head with it." Can I get feedback on how I'm doing in that regard?


	8. Too Old, Too Young

MaDnEsS

* * *

><p>Gray is endless order and chaos.<p>

Black and white are absolutes, balancers of the other. But black is black and white is white.

Black is a dark, dominating force, covering everything in its path so color is present no more.

White is calm, soothing touch, caressing each first breathe so it can flourish.

Am I white? Joy. Care. Warmth. Too young, only white. Can't understand enough to turn gray. A smile in every direction, little dimples so cute on little cherubs, making everything so high! Wind kisses from the air. Grass and tiny white flowers tickle ankles and chubby knees. The sun warms the skin in a hug to and from all. Laughter and fun resound the same within all. Comforting hands and cooing lullabies end the day, to let softness fade the way to sleep. My throat starts to itch, o how it burns! Cough cough cough cough cough cough cough-why? Everything spins. So fun to walk in the spinning, so hard to stay upright. Silence. No more coughing. No more warmth.

Am I black? So much darkness. Can't return, no rest. The sun went down. Cold. Refined and Noble. Ancient memories, unwanted and never relived. Metal in the hand, the killer waving in the air, slicing through air through flesh. Wet splashing my face, sticky, sticky, red on black, red hides in black. Water. Bridge. Demons.

Either one is too unbalanced, leaning too much on one side of the spectrum. They are pure, yet incomplete. Forever on an ever tilting see-saw. Neither feel comfortable. Black leaves an empty hole in my heart. White is too often pushed away by black, buried six feet under. The mark it left lingers, the upturned earth calls to me.

_Too young_, says the looming black, a flurry of winds waiting for the butterfly to make it a tornado.

_Too old,_ echoes the white, its voice too underdeveloped to say much.

_Too young_, repeats the black in a wise warning tone,_ to be gray._

_Too old,_ protests the white, _to be gray. _

The white and black mix for a moment, running like oil in water. They cry. White cannot survive with black. Black cannot survive with white. White comes from black. Black comes from white.

Tears flow from the white. The black accepts without remorse.

Do I cry? Do I stay silent?

So much confusion. Am I white or black? Black brings nothing but sadness and anger, does it not? No, no, to be black is to bring white, but to never experience gray. Black accepts anger, sadness, happiness, and peace. To be black is to be at peace, is it not? To be white is to be joy, is it not?

I am not at peace. Am I? I am not happy. Am I? Can I not be at peace? Can I not be happy?

Breathe in, breathe out.

Black.

White.

Can't, breathe. Gray.

* * *

><p>The little black gasped for air the white needed. Cold sweat did not coat him. Blood trickled from a split lip, proclaiming his mortality. It was healed by the time his breathing steadied.<p>

The moon stared down at Death City, eyes mad and mouth oozing scarlet, the same as every night. Kid envied it.


End file.
